This kid was given a school assignment. He was to come up with a business idea that filled a void. He thought of a great one. —->
Money – “We had to come up with a business idea,” he said. The straight-A student, who’s a first baseman and pitcher for his high school baseball team, had one immediately.
“Every time I’d travel for a baseball tournament in Alabama, I’d notice that kids would get hurt and parents couldn’t find a band-aid,” he said. “I wanted to solve that.”
His initial thought was to set up a pop-up shop at the tournaments to sell first-aid kits. He tried it and quickly realized it wasn’t the best model.
“We noticed that it would cost too much to pay people minimum wage to sit at tournaments for six hours,” he said. Then the vending machine idea struck.
Rosenthal sketched a design and consulted with his parents, both of whom work in the medical industry.
By December, he had a working prototype and had acquired a patent.
He already has an order from Six Flags for 100 machines.
RecMed will make money by selling the machines, which cost $5,500 apiece, and through restocking fees for the supplies. Rosenthal said he’s also open to putting advertising on the machines.
Damn! The IS a God in Heaven, and He has let a ray of sunshine through the gloom to show us that there is hope in our children and for the future.
Good going, young man. Just keep a level head, don’t let all that money and fame spoil you.
Believe it or not, I had a very similar idea. I just didn’t think it was that good. I certainly didn’t think it was worth 30 million dollars. Maybe I should re-think some of my earlier ideas, I might be on the verge of being rich and I don’t even know it.
Kid’s gonna be richer than Trump by the time he’s 30. Good going Kid. It will be worth about 3X that if he ever goes public, but then he would loose control over the business.
I think he screwed up, get your thirty million and stash it before Bernie takes office.
Seriously, was the idea worth MORE than 30 million?
I don’t really see people getting hurt all the time, otherwise there would be vending machines dispensing trial lawyers…
Perhaps all the precious little snowflakes who constantly drone on about how it’s impossible to get ahead without government handouts should look very closely at this story.
It’s called initiative, invention, and innovation! Along with personal responsibility it’s what made this country the greatest in the world!
GREAT. JOB. TAYLOR! You’re Making America Great Again!
You go, guy!
But don’t be so sold on Notre Dame. UGA also has a great business school (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_College_of_Business) and football team — not to mention their baseball team!
Kids an idiot. Take the money and run. Obama is still in office.
“Remember kid,you didn’t build that”
I think the kid’s story is over hyped. His idea really isn’t worth that much. The vending machines products are WAAAY overpriced. The story sounds like a dot comm fluff piece to me.
I carry band-aids for folks in my squad at IDPA Pistol matches. I tell them that they MUST use mine if they get a boo-boo. Right now they can choose between Hello Kitty and Duck Dynasty. (for serious slide bite I can also suture)
@Anonymous — My husband, his brother and sister ran a vending machine operation when they were in college. Cha-ching!
While vending machine products are overpriced, it’s all about demand.
Ever been stuck for hours at an ER with a sick/hurt family member?
You’ll pay that $1.50 for a bottle of water and $1.00 for a pack of crackers!
go ahead and mandate that all public school jr and sr. high schools football, baseball, basketball, and (cough/spit) succer fields and you might come up with a valuation of $30,000,000.
OR the parents could be good Boy Scouts and put a few bandages in their pocket before they went to the kids game…
but then, that’s why spacebook had an ipo at 108 billion.
How did he get a patent?
Back when I was traveling around a lot there were vending machines in truck stop restrooms that dispensed condoms, aspirin, Band-Aids, and sometimes even sandwiches.
“…restrooms that dispensed … … sandwiches. ”
? I’ll pass on that sandwich. Sounds shitty and I don’t even know what it’s made of.
Gosh. The kid didn’t invent first aid or vending machines. What’s so innovative about using the vending machine model to dispense first aid?
I got it! My innovative idea is an app that directs you to the nearest pharmacy whenever you swipe… I dunno left/right whatever.
Dadod4 the lot lizards ate things much more disgusting than a restroom vending machine sandwich. I suspect that was the target market.
Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
How about making a counter offer of $20 million and keep a royalty? The product gets to market fast and beats the copycats. With the royalty you can still be a part of the growth potential.
Maybe he could have asked to be a mentor and learn something from business that Notre Dame cannot teach. (thinking about Rodney Dangerfield in “Easy Money”)
By the time he finds investors and starts building there will be duplicates of some sort out there. The patent has to be for some obscure machine hardware or software which as the cell phone industry has shown to be worthless patents.
He’ll need to add Maxi-pads, Condoms and Vaseline to make all the people happy all the time, and make sure they glow in the dark.
Geez kid, I was with ya until you naively said something about going to Notre Dame. Ever heard of Father Hedsburgh? You’d be better off going to the National colleges of Cuba, North Korea, China, Brazil, or Venezuela. At least they offer a better opinion of the Catholic Church.
Hey! How ’bout a Preparation H dispenser at the TSA screening line? I’m rich!!!!
$30MM and he didn’t take it?
It reminds me of the time Lisa Simpson turned down a $10MM check from C Montgomery Burns for her Omni-Net and Lil’ Lisa’s Slurry ideas.